Creative Europe MEDIA
Training Guide

Berlinale Talents is a Berlinale Pro* initiative of the Berlin International Film Festival - the talent development programme for 200 emerging filmmakers and series creators from all over the world that explores the how and why of movie making.

The Biennale College Cinema – Virtual Reality (BCC-VR) is a programme developed by La Biennale di Venezia to navigate Virtual Reality.

Cannes Makers focuses on every step of the international sales process.

This latest initiative by the Marché du Film invites participants to discover the different professions within the global film market that help bring a film from script to screen, while also addressing the issues impacting the industry today, such as diversity, inclusion, representation, and sustainability.

Through this new mentoring program, our aim is to shape the new generation of film industry leaders by fostering collaboration across borders, connecting our participants with key industry experts and nurturing their drive to thrive!

Cartoon is an international non-profit association based in Brussels. Cartoon's main mission is to support the animation industry by organising several types of events dedicated to animation professionals throughout the year.

The CEE Animation Workshop is a year-long project development and producer skills advancement training program for European film professionals working in animation.

Cinekid Directors LAB is a vital coaching programme for directors with a dynamic children's film project in advanced development. During Cinekid Directors LAB, an international group of acclaimed directors will focus on the final steps necessary prior to pre-production, coupled with the special and specific skills required for working with children. Above all the program offers hands-on tailor-made coaching. This LAB is a logical next step for projects developed within Cinekid Script LAB or former participants of the Junior Co-production Market.

Cinekid Script LAB is a six-month script-training programme for writers with a children's film or series project. The training was initiated by Cinekid in 2014, and takes place during Cinekid for Professionals in October, and the Berlinale the following February. During the Cinekid Script LAB, an international group of writers and writer/directors will work on their plans for children’s feature films or series. The programme offers tailor-made coaching and training; it answers to the specific writer’s and story’s needs, along a six-month trajectory.

The Sarajevo Film Festival, initiated in 1995 during the Siege of Sarajevo, has grown into a trailblazing film festival with a special focus on Southeast Europe. The CineLink Industry Days, festival's buisness platform, aims to increase the business, professional, and creative capacities of local and regional film and TV professionals on a continuous basis.

CPH:LAB is CPH:DOX’s talent development programme that encourages creative risk-taking, facilitates collaboration across borders and business sectors, and supports visionaries to push the existing boundaries of documentary filmmaking.

In the Creative Simulation Technologies course, participants will learn how to master the art and science of simulations in the Houdini-certified, full-time course taught by active specialists from the VFX industry. Topics include fluid simulations, rigid body work, Pyro dynamics, GPU rendering, and interactive, real-time graphics.

Organized by Sarajevo Film Festival and Balkan Documentary Center, Docu Rough Cut Boutique is a platform dedicated to documentary projects in the advanced phase of the editing process.

With the perfect mix of workshops, webinars, pitches and extensive networking opportunities, the prestigious Masterschool is a one-stop-shop for non-fiction projects of all media looking for a boost in the European market.

dok.incubator is an eight-month long workshop for 8 international and 8 low audiovisual capacity countries‘ creative teams (director, editor, producer) with ambitions to enter the international market with their films.

A five-days immersive audience-focused workshop exploring 360º film marketing by gaining insight about the classic tools and the latest trends in Digital PR, social media management, digital marketing and Audience building.

A year long programme focused on three intensive weeks featuring professional development through working on the development of fiction, documentary and TV series projects.

PUENTES Europe - Latin America Co-Production Workshop is a project-based year-long training programme including two 5-day residential workshops and a market module at Ventana Sur.

An intensive four day workshop event for independent producers with a solid track record and international experience reinforcing their managerial and financial capacity to compete successfully in European and global markets and to run sustainable companies.

EMERGING PRODUCERS is a training programme designed for the up-and-coming producers of documentary films in Europe. The programme facilitates personal and professional skills development, with a special emphasis put on the role of producers in today’s film industry environment. It focuses on promoting talented European producers, introducing them to the international film market, and on creating a new network of film professionals with the aim to increase the potential of European co-productions.

ESoDoc - European Social Documentary is an 8-month long training initiative for media professionals who want to improve their storytelling and co-creative skills, to broaden the potential of their documentary and new media project to gain access to a larger market.

ESSENTIAL LEGAL FRAMEWORK (ELF) is a long-running training series featuring residential workshops, online courses (eTraining) and from 2022 on, compact online seminars. The training equips audiovisual professionals with crucial skills and competences with an emphasis on legal and business aspects. The training activities offer relevant topics, hands-on information, acclaimed experts and valuable networking, employing a variety of formats and methodologies.

Eureka Series is an intensive three-month training course for twelve emerging writers and producers of television drama series from all over Europe. Delivered in partnership with La Fémis, it is an initiative created by the Series Mania Institute to train professionals in the rapidly changing TV series industry, with a strong focus on European collaboration.

We focus on storytelling, content development and the creative challenges of immersive story worlds. The DEVELOPMENT LAB hosts participants and mentors from all over Europe and worldwide. Packed with intense expert sessions, masterclasses and workshops, you will find a safe space to learn, explore, experiment and collaborate – in a non-competitive, multi-disciplinary, creative environment, where you develop ideas, level up your storytelling skills, start new projects and make friends with the European XR family.

In our Prototyping Lab, we work across disciplines and industries, focusing on immersive narration, UX design, production processes and workflows, team skills, and rapid prototyping. Together we work on ideas for the medium and the markets of the future.

Our Residency will support up to 10 immersive projects in an advanced concept state with intense, individual coaching sessions from international mentors and inspiring workshops and masterclasses.

The Spielfabrique EU Games Accelerator is strongly focused on international markets and deliberately chooses to bring the studios literally and “virtually” outside their country on a regular basis to maximize networking opportunities.

The program focuses on business and management mentoring for video game studios and explores different ways to finance, develop and release a video game to the market: Publishing and distribution opportunities through our experts’ network; pitching training and long-term strategy building; and access to a dedicated network of investors, financiers, and publishers.

At the end of the program, the game studios will demonstrate greater business acquirement, a European perspective in the gaming sector, and an ambitious market-driven strategy for their projects and companies.

The European Showrunner Programme (ESP) is an intensive 6-month advanced training programme designed to provide experienced European series writers with the opportunity to acquire and refine the skills needed for taking on the demanding role of a showrunner.

Ex Oriente Film is a professional-based, international training program organized by the Institute of Documentary Film in partnership with international festivals, markets and industry platforms. Workshop is focused on supporting the development and funding of creative documentary (Ex Oriente Film) and docuseries (Ex Oriente Series) projects.

Since 2010, INA has organised the annual training programme FRAME in partnership with FIAT/IFTA (International Federation of Television Archives) and EBU Academy (European Broadcasting Union).

FRAME is co-funded by the Creative Europe – MEDIA programme of the European Union.

The Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée (CNC) is launching a training program for international pairs of authors, focused on the stakes and challenges of co-writing international series, in partnership with the Series Mania festival (France), the coproduction and networking market Conecta Fiction & Entertainment (Spain) and the Sarajevo Film Festival – CineLink Industry Days (Bosnia and Herzegovina).

IDFAcademy is IDFA’s training program during the festival. Each year, it offers a group of 100 talented documentary filmmakers and producers the opportunity to gain up-to-date knowledge about the international documentary industry (financing, production, distribution, creative content).

IFFR actively supports new and adventurous filmmaking talent through its IFFR Pro activities; co-production market CineMart, its Hubert Bals Fund and other innovative Industry- related activities. Rotterdam Lab, Creative Producer Indaba and BoostNL are talent development programmes (co-) organised by IFFR Pro, hosting a combined total of 160 participants.

As the business aspects of an audio-visual production company are dealt with in contracts, the business and legal sides are intertwined. Business and legal affairs can appear quite daunting, especially in the earlier stages of a career in film and TV. This programme has been designed to address this and will cover the legal framework that is required to handle all relevant aspects of a film or TV series. The course starts with the early stage development, to financing, to finally reaching your audience or, as the case may be, your customers like distributors, broadcasters or streaming services.

This online sustainability management course focuses on improving film and media business environments. It will provide you with the tools and techniques to run your business or large media project more sustainably. There is already excellent training for ecological movie and TV production; therefore, our multi-dimensional approach includes economical, ecological, cultural, and social perspectives.

Designed to encourage filmmakers to find and build early audience engagement for their project/s. Learning to develop an audience design strategy at the earlier stages of the filmmaking process will allow participants to have a greater understanding of how to engage that audience with the correct messaging for grassroots marketing across the various social platforms, find and build communities and look at alternative and education opportunities. Participants will leave this lab with a greater understanding of how to augment their film’s message, and how to build an impact campaign around their film.

La Biennale di Venezia organizes and produces, with its Cinema Department , the Venice International Film Festival and its industry side, Venice Production Bridge (VPB), Biennale College-Cinema and its two components, Biennale College-Cinema (BCC) and Biennale College-Cinema Virtual Reality (BBC-VR).

LIM | Less is More has been set up to empower a generation of filmmakers intent on opening new avenues and finding new audiences by tackling new issues.

MFI SCRIPT 2 FILM WORKSHOPS is an advanced training program for the effective script & project development of European & international FEATURE FILMS, SERIES PROJECTS & FEATURE DOCUMENTARIES.

MIDPOINT Feature Launch is project, script and skills development program with networking platform for directorial debuts or second features. The core is dedicated to 9 teams of writer and/or director and also to 3 aspiring script consultants who follow the whole script development process.

MIDPOINT Series Launch is as an “idea-to-market” project and skills development program spanning over 7 months. The program is dedicated to 9 teams of writer/s and producer/s, potentially a director, with long-form series projects in development and also 3 development executive participants (DEs) who follow the whole development training.

NEXT STEPS is a training series designed specifically to diversify European audiovisual companies and help them adopt the opportunities of digitization and master a cultural shift within by tackling the underrepresentation of marginalized groups.

SERIAL EYES, Europe’s premier postgraduate training programme in serials development, prepares the next generation of European TV writers and emerging showrunners to bring 1st-class serialized storytelling to TV screens across the continent and beyond.

ACE Producers is Europe’s premier network of successful producers from Europe and beyond. ACE Producers enables profound collaborations through honest dialogue in the safe trusted space of the ACE Network and fosters valuable exchange of high-level knowledge about the independent audio-visual industry. The ACE Network consists of more than 250 active producers from more than 45 countries who regularly unite to update their knowledge, share information and initiate collaboration in a safe space.

Script development programme for writer/directors or teams of writer and director with a fiction feature film script at an early stage of development. Throughout the year the projects, which in general begin the programme in a treatment stage, are developed through the enriching experience of sharing this creative stage of the writing process with the other filmmakers in the group.

FeatureLab focuses on artistic and creative aspects as well as on production and promotion strategies in the development of 1st and 2nd feature films.

Green Film Lab aims to train European film professionals on green practices in film production, how to apply a green protocol, and get a certification.

ScriptLab – story editing is hands-on training for film professionals who want to work with writers and directors in the development stage of their fiction feature film projects. The aim of the programme is to provide insight into the development process of a feature film – focusing on the early scriptwriting stage.

SeriesLab is aimed at developing innovative and high-profile international TV series projects and stands out for involving all the main players involved in TV series production – scriptwriters, producers, and TV broadcasters – and for offering a close link between the scriptwriting process and the TV industry.

The programme provides the participants with an intensive 5-month career development training, plus a final presentation in one of the main European TV markets in 2023.

One lab for 4 European and 4 Asian animation producers, which takes place both fully online in October/November and onsite at the Asia TV Forum & Market (ATF) in Singapore, in cooperation with ATF, SAAVA and CEE Animation Workshop. The lab will primarily be focused on animation for kids with different formats such as shorts, series and features. Participants have access to leading Asian and European animation key-players, VOD platform commissioning editors, private equity investors, and share best practices on how to maximise their IP rights in the two markets.

TTB Europe-Asia Co-Production Workshop in partnership with EAVE: a project-based programme for 10 European and Asian producers who wish to focus on developing their project including their directors, and 5 European film professionals such as sales agents, distributors, producers, festival programmers, representatives of co-production markets and funding institutions who wish to work with Asia and focus on developing their career.

One lab for 4 European and 4 Asian distributors, taking place at FOCUS ASIA during the FEFF in Udine, where all participants share best practices of successful releases for European and Asian films on both markets.

Two labs for 5 European sales agents, organized in cooperation with European Film Promotion. One hybrid lab will take place online and onsite within the frame of FOCUS ASIA during the FEFF in Udine, Italy. Under the title "Get Ready for Asia", it will provide sales representatives a survival kit how to work with Asian buyers. The second lab will take place onsite at the Asian Contents & Film Market (ACFM) in Busan, South Korea. During the two sessions, the participants discuss possible sales strategies in the Asian fragmented market and get unique access to a network of Asian buyers interested in European content.